Elaine Heyworth
Elaine Heyworth is the final boss of the video game Koudelka of the Shadow Hearts series. Originally a normal woman, Elaine has become a feral undead creature bent on indiscriminately killing things, including her own husband. Biography Elaine was the wife of a man named Patrick Heyworth a wealthy, goodhearted recluse. While Patrick was out on business some thieves broke into the Heyworth household and killed Elaine in the robbery. When Patrick returned and found out he was heartbroken and fell into a deep depression. One fateful night he took in a stranger and over of the course of the evening told the traveler his sad story. However this stranger was no mere traveler but a warlock with connections to the Church, a man named Albert Simon. Albert told Patrick about three books written by his mentor, Roger Bacon, one of which was called the Émigré Manuscript. Albert told Patrick the Émigré Manuscript was a book with instruction on how to raise the dead. Patrick was overjoyed at the prospect of being able to bring Elaine back to life and paid Albert a great deal of money to sneak into the Vatican for him and steal the book for him from it's sacred resting place. Albert happily agreed to steal the book, for he had plans of his own on how to use the three books and wanted to see one of the books tested before he attempted anything drastic himself. Once Patrick had the book he began following the dark rites, aside from symbols and incantations the ritual would require a great deal of bound up malice to make it work. The easiest way to accumulate enough malice for the ritual site was with blood sacrifices. Patrick built his house on top of an old Inquisitional dungeon and went deep into the lower levels to harvest the spiritual malice there as well as bring in "fresh meat" when needed. He had the help of his two servants Ogden and Bessy, who had been given their jobs despite a troubled past that black listed them due to the kindness of Elaine; so they were both just as devoted to Elaine's resurrection as Patrick and were willing to overlook the price. After much research, trial and error and...sweat and blood...Patrick did succeed in raising Elaine. But what came back was not the real Elaine but an eldritch horror wearing his wife's body. Patrick restrained the creature, but was so heartbroken to see he had taken innocent lives just to defile his wife's body that in an act of despair, allowed Elain's body to kill him in the lower levels of his lab. As it was unable to escape, it went into a hibernative state. Ogden and Bessy never heard what happened to their master and thought he had been consumed by his work. Ogden and Bessy continued to take in anyone that happened by, Bessy would offer them food laced with paralytic poison and then drag them off to Ogden's room where he chopped them up and the pieces sent down below for his master to pick up. ''Koudelka'' When the events of Koudelka occurred, Koudelka Iasant, a psychic raised as a witch, visited the estate/monastery after being drawn there by psychic cries for help. After meeting up with Edward Plunkett, Father James O' Flaherty and Roger Bacon Koudelka over the course of their adventures what had been going on and that it was Elaine's spirit that called her there. James was an old friend of the Heyworths and actually loved Elaine deeply and became a priest once his friend, Patrick had married her. He was there not only to check up on his friends but to track down the books that had been stolen. He had been tasked by the Vatican to retrieve the books with his friend Father Elliot, while Elliot had gone looking for the thief himself James was going to look for the book which he had tracked down to his old friend. When Koudelka finally summons Elaine's spirit, Elaine says she wanted someone to go into the depths of dungeon and kill her body which still linked her tortured soul to the world, even though she could not control it. There are two possible endings to the game depending on the player's actions. One ending has the group defeating "Elaine" and leaving together, the other has James willing to offer his life to God if only He will grant Elaine some peace and both he and "Elaine" are enveloped in holy light and killed but their souls ascend to heaven. The one in which the two die is the canonical ending. Ether way the monastery is destroyed with "Elaine"; Koudelka, Edward and Roger say their goodbyes and go their separate ways. It is revealed in Shadow Hearts that Albert Simon returned later to take back the Émigré Manuscript for his own research. Émigré Manuscript Animation Elaine was not the last person to be resurrected using Émigré Manuscript and other than Johnny Garland none of the attempts were successful in bringing back the person they were supposed to; even Johnny was not quite the same as he was before his death and even in his case there was a terrible price, his sister Grace. Most of those given life with the Émigré Manuscript were hostile creatures that set out to mindlessly kill anyone in their path. Powers and Abilities Upon being awakened from it's hibernation Elaine's body instinctively attacks Koudelka, Edward and James by spewing acid at them from her mouth, if Koudelka has not recovered her amulet to ward off the attack the party is instantly killed in the screenplay. Assuming the team survives the screenplay where Elaine is awakened she will instantly attack them, beating her will only slow her down and Koudleka must flee to the roof to fight her for the final time, until then Elaine's body will keep chasing her and trying to engage the party in battle until they reach the roof. Once on the roof Elaine's body reaches it's final metamorphosis for the game's climax. Elaine's reanimated body appears mostly human at first but mutates more with each encounter, until it is little more than an eldritch monster with a human female's face. Though it's health, strength and inhuman appearance keeps growing with each encounter it continually boasts heavy physical and magical resistances, poison attacks and high damage output. With no real weakness to exploit Elaine's body is primarily beaten purely through level-grinding prior to the battle rather than any specific attack strategy. As the cannon ending can only be achieved if the party loses the final battle, the game seems to have been planned around the battle being unbeatable. Trivia *The symbol inscribed across Elaine's Body's chest is the " Qliphoth Tree"/ "Tree of life" - a Hebrew symbol tied to mysticism and later tied to Satanism. Albert Simon's signature spell "Revelation" uses the same Qliphoth Tree symbol, another manifestation of the powers of the Émigré Manuscript. Navigation Category:Undead Category:Parasite Category:Tragic Category:Female Category:Shadow Hearts Villains Category:Dark Fantasy Villains Category:Horror Villains Category:Video Game Villains Category:Mute Category:Mutated Category:Zombies Category:Alter-Ego Category:Redeemed Category:Revived Category:Neutral Evil Category:Fallen Heroes Category:Magic Category:Noncorporeal Category:Spouses Category:Deceased